Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Plans Quarterly Dividend of $1.48

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, March 20th, RTT News reports. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th will be paid a dividend of 1.48 per share by the information technology services provider on Thursday, May 15th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.97%.

Accenture has raised its dividend by an average of 14.4% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend every year for the last 20 years. Accenture has a payout ratio of 42.7% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect Accenture to earn $13.73 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $5.92 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 43.1%.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE ACN opened at $300.86 on Friday. Accenture has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $398.35. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $360.05 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $357.39. The company has a market capitalization of $188.28 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.24, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The company’s revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.77 earnings per share. Analysts anticipate that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total transaction of $91,514.72. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,516,610.90. This represents a 2.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total transaction of $3,468,574.71. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. This trade represents a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190 in the last 90 days. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

A hedge fund recently raised its stake in Accenture stock. Brighton Jones LLC increased its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 36.2% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm owned 18,438 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 4,905 shares during the period. Brighton Jones LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $6,486,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts have recently commented on ACN shares. Mizuho reduced their price objective on shares of Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday. Piper Sandler dropped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $429.00 to $396.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, March 14th. BMO Capital Markets reduced their target price on Accenture from $425.00 to $370.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday. Baird R W raised Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $384.45.

About Accenture

Accenture plc, a professional services company, provides strategy and consulting, industry X, song, and technology and operation services worldwide. The company offers application services, including agile transformation, DevOps, application modernization, enterprise architecture, software and quality engineering, data management; intelligent automation comprising robotic process automation, natural language processing, and virtual agents; and application management services, as well as software engineering services; strategy and consulting services; data and analytics strategy, data discovery and augmentation, data management and beyond, data democratization, and industrialized solutions comprising turnkey analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions; metaverse; and sustainability services.